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Civic IdeaIs ConJIicling Visions oJ CilizensIip in U. S. Hislov I Bogevs M. SnilI
Beviev I Luc SaIev
Lav and Hislov Beviev, VoI. 19, No. 3 |Aulunn, 2001), pp. 698-699
FuIIisIed I American Society for Legal History
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Law and
History Review,
Fall 2001
Rogers
M.
Smith,
Civic Ideals:
Conflicting
Visions
of Citizenship
in U.S. His-
tory,
New Haven: Yale
University
Press,
1997.
Pp.
736. $40.00 (ISBN
0-300-
06989-8); $21.00
paper (ISBN 0-300-07877-3).
In Civic Ideals,
Rogers
Smith takes aim
against
the
"misleading orthodoxy
on
American civic
identity" perpetuated
not
only by popular
culture but also
by
ma-
jor political
thinkers such as Alexis de
Tocqueville
and later
historians,
most no-
tably,
Louis
Hartz,
who
emphasize
the United States'
"equality
of condition" as
the
prime
determinant of American democratic
political
culture.
According
to this
view,
American
citizenship
is
distinctively
liberal in
basing membership
on con-
sent and
allegiance
to
political principles
rather than on
race, religion, gender,
or
national
origins.
Smith undertakes his
comprehensive history
of
citizenship
in the United States
to show that while at certain
points
in American
history-the Revolutionary peri-
od, Reconstruction,
and the Civil
Rights
era of the 1950s and 1960s-liberal dem-
ocratic
principles
have
triumphed
for a
time, competing
and less admirable "civic
traditions" have often had more
sway
over American law and
policy. "Through
most
of U.S.
history,"
Smith
argues,
"lawmakers
pervasively
and
unapologetically
struc-
tured U.S.
citizenship
in terms of illiberal and undemocratic
racial, ethnic,
and
gender hierarchies, for reasons rooted in basic, enduring imperatives
of
political
life" (1). Smith sees
political
elites
playing
a crucial role in the creation of civic
identity
as leaders need "a
population
that
imagines
itself to be a
'people';..
.
they
need a
people
that
imagines
itself in
ways
that make
leadership by
those
aspirants
appropriate" (6).
All too often, political
leaders have relied
upon
"civic
myths"
that
rest on what Smith calls
"inegalitarian, ascriptive"
definitions of
membership
in
their effort to build constituencies with a common
identity.
These more exclusive
conceptions
of American
citizenship
have
shaped
much of the law on American
citizenship,
as Smith
dramatically points
out: "For over 80
percent
of U.S. histo-
ry,
American laws declared most
people
in the world
ineligible
to become full U.S.
citizens, solely
because of their race, original nationality,
or
gender" (15).
Smith bases his
argument upon
an overview of the
history
of American citizen-
ship
between 1798 and 1912, divided into
chronological periods paralleling
ma-
jor
shifts in
political party
control. In each
period,
he
explores
the
competing
civ-
ic
ideologies
advanced
by political actors, the visions that succeed,
and the
resulting
legal
constructions of
citizenship.
Smith has
ample
evidence to
support
his
major
claim that U.S.
citizenship
law has been
plagued by
contradictions and irrational-
ity
as it
responded
to "a
variety
of
political imperatives" (35).
It has not been un-
usual for
political parties
to advance both liberal democratic and
inegalitarian
as-
criptive arguments.
Jeffersonian
Republicans,
for
example, emphasized citizenship
as a matter of mutual consent, yet
also
promoted
an
"aggressive
civic racism";
Jacksonian Democrats were "more
openly racist,
but also more
radically
libertar-
ian and more
militantly republican
than
any [party]
in U.S.
history" (138, 201).
The Jacksonian era witnessed the achievement of universal white male
suffrage
and the
popularization
of
party politics and, at the same time, the disfranchisement
of African Americans, the
relegation
of Indians to the status of
dependent wards,
and the denial of
political rights
to women. Smith also debunks the
whiggish
nar-
698
This content downloaded on Sun, 6 Jan 2013 17:17:26 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ratives that
argue
that the American
polity
has
progressively
shed its discrimina-
tory policies
and come to a more
thorough
realization of the liberal democratic
principles
first embraced
by
the nation's founders. Rather than a
story
of
steady
progress,
Smith relates a
history
with
significant fluctuations,
each
period
of
signifi-
cant reform and liberalization of
citizenship
law
being
followed
by
a
period
of
reaction and
inegalitarianism.
While the
story
Smith tells will not come as a
surprise
to social and
political
historians,
his
primary purpose
is to
provide
critical historical
perspective
to con-
temporary
discussions about the
present
and future state of American civic identi-
ty.
That
object
is most
apparent
in the last
chapter
of the book. Here Smith focus-
es on the limits and
possibilities
of liberal democratic
theory,
a
theory
he believes
is worth
bolstering
as it offers "more
potential
than
any
other alternative to
pro-
vide
paths
to
greater
human material
prosperity, personal security
and
happiness,
domestic and international
peace,
and intellectual and
spiritual progress" (489).
The
essential
problem
of American
liberalism, according
to
Smith,
is that it has failed
to
acknowledge
and address "the
political imperatives
that have structured U.S.
civic
identity
and
nation-building
more
broadly" (472).
In
particular,
liberalism has
been unable to
provide
Americans with a
satisfying
answer to central
questions
concerning
American national
identity:
What makes Americans distinct? Who are
we as a
people?
What is our shared
identity? Answering
those
questions
in a man-
ner that affirms liberal democratic
theory
without
slipping
into claims of Ameri-
can
exceptionalism
or
creating
civic
myths
that exclude in
discriminatory ways
is
tricky. Trying
to find the foundation for a liberal democratic civic
identity,
Smith
turns,
as other recent thinkers
have,
to Americans' shared historical
past.
What
makes the United States
unique,
Smith
argues,
is its existence as a "distinct his-
torical
entity,
. . with a linked set of
compelling
stories that are
very
much of its
own,
... that
genuinely
transcends
any
and all of the individuals who ever have
or ever will
participate
in it"
(497).
Given the
history
related
by
Smith-one dom-
inated
by conflict, narrow-mindedness,
and
inegalitarianism-his
choice of the
past
as a
rallying point
for American civic
identity
is curious. Smith does not believe
that an
emphasis
on a shared
past
would
necessarily degenerate
into
"inspiration-
al
history"
and the creation of new civic
myths.
He wants us to look American
history
in the
eye,
with all of its warts and
imperfections
as well as its
accomplish-
ments,
and to come
away
determined "to write a
happy ending,
or a least a better
next
chapter" (499).
Lucy Salyer
University
of New
Hampshire
David
Kyvig, Explicit
and Authentic Acts:
Amending
the U.S.
Constitution,
1776-1995,
Lawrence:
University
Press of
Kansas,
1996.
Pp.
xx+ 604. $55.00
(ISBN 0-7006-0792-7).
After two decades of sustained attacks on
judicial
activism and
judicial suprema-
cy-what
critics
regard
as
defacto
amendment of the Constitution
by
the
Supreme
Court-David
Kyvig
has
produced
a
comprehensive history
of the formal amend-
ratives that
argue
that the American
polity
has
progressively
shed its discrimina-
tory policies
and come to a more
thorough
realization of the liberal democratic
principles
first embraced
by
the nation's founders. Rather than a
story
of
steady
progress,
Smith relates a
history
with
significant fluctuations,
each
period
of
signifi-
cant reform and liberalization of
citizenship
law
being
followed
by
a
period
of
reaction and
inegalitarianism.
While the
story
Smith tells will not come as a
surprise
to social and
political
historians,
his
primary purpose
is to
provide
critical historical
perspective
to con-
temporary
discussions about the
present
and future state of American civic identi-
ty.
That
object
is most
apparent
in the last
chapter
of the book. Here Smith focus-
es on the limits and
possibilities
of liberal democratic
theory,
a
theory
he believes
is worth
bolstering
as it offers "more
potential
than
any
other alternative to
pro-
vide
paths
to
greater
human material
prosperity, personal security
and
happiness,
domestic and international
peace,
and intellectual and
spiritual progress" (489).
The
essential
problem
of American
liberalism, according
to
Smith,
is that it has failed
to
acknowledge
and address "the
political imperatives
that have structured U.S.
civic
identity
and
nation-building
more
broadly" (472).
In
particular,
liberalism has
been unable to
provide
Americans with a
satisfying
answer to central
questions
concerning
American national
identity:
What makes Americans distinct? Who are
we as a
people?
What is our shared
identity? Answering
those
questions
in a man-
ner that affirms liberal democratic
theory
without
slipping
into claims of Ameri-
can
exceptionalism
or
creating
civic
myths
that exclude in
discriminatory ways
is
tricky. Trying
to find the foundation for a liberal democratic civic
identity,
Smith
turns,
as other recent thinkers
have,
to Americans' shared historical
past.
What
makes the United States
unique,
Smith
argues,
is its existence as a "distinct his-
torical
entity,
. . with a linked set of
compelling
stories that are
very
much of its
own,
... that
genuinely
transcends
any
and all of the individuals who ever have
or ever will
participate
in it"
(497).
Given the
history
related
by
Smith-one dom-
inated
by conflict, narrow-mindedness,
and
inegalitarianism-his
choice of the
past
as a
rallying point
for American civic
identity
is curious. Smith does not believe
that an
emphasis
on a shared
past
would
necessarily degenerate
into
"inspiration-
al
history"
and the creation of new civic
myths.
He wants us to look American
history
in the
eye,
with all of its warts and
imperfections
as well as its
accomplish-
ments,
and to come
away
determined "to write a
happy ending,
or a least a better
next
chapter" (499).
Lucy Salyer
University
of New
Hampshire
David
Kyvig, Explicit
and Authentic Acts:
Amending
the U.S.
Constitution,
1776-1995,
Lawrence:
University
Press of
Kansas,
1996.
Pp.
xx+ 604. $55.00
(ISBN 0-7006-0792-7).
After two decades of sustained attacks on
judicial
activism and
judicial suprema-
cy-what
critics
regard
as
defacto
amendment of the Constitution
by
the
Supreme
Court-David
Kyvig
has
produced
a
comprehensive history
of the formal amend-
Book Reviews Book Reviews 699 699
This content downloaded on Sun, 6 Jan 2013 17:17:26 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions